Busy Busy Busy!

We haven't updated in a while have we? -sigh-. Sorry guys, it appears Rianna and I have succumbed to the pressures of writing English essays. I guess this post is to update you on the recent things we've been doing in and out of school.

Caramel Rock

 So we recently begun a "Fashion Open" course with Caramel Rock based in Canning Town. This course takes 10-12 weeks to complete and is every Friday till Saturday. It consists of us learning how to design, create and present our work to each other and to other people. My little qualm about the course is the amount of time it takes up. On Fridays we go in from 4.30 till 6.30 pm and on Saturdays we go in from 11-4.30 pm. So by the end of the week, we are KNACKERED. Its also why we haven't gone out to do Street Snaps or just generally go out. After the course we get an accreditation and we get to a chance to showcase our work in local fashion shows or in London Fashion Week. Despite that I have some doubts...

Sneaky shot of Rianna doing some design work, hee.

F.A.D Fashion Forward Careers Course.

I did this a week ago without Rianna -sigh-  It was an intensive 2-day course about our future choices and beyond. The first day involved talks from undergraduate students studying Textiles and Fashion. They were all studying in London. One funny thing was how the textiles students all had massive portfolios filled with samples of weave, stitching, print, dye and many more decorative techniques where as the fashion students just whipped out their iPad or portfolio to show us drawings of initial ideas and design developments and research. 

The second day involved meeting professionals in the field, so we met a trend forecaster and a boutique owner based in Dalston who worked with environmentally friendly material, check out: http://www.heretoday-heretomorrow.com/

P.S Their winter accessories have beautiful velvet lining, their muffler is on my wishlist!

Its a very intense two days with a close group of people, if you plan on taking Textiles A-Level or planning to do anything with fashion in the future, I highly recommend any opportunity given by F.A.D!

Textiles Coursework

So we've been pressing on with our textiles coursework and got started on my favourite bit (designing).

In comparison to GCSE, A-Level is a lot more fast paced and intensive, a lot of choices are made impulsively and its never good to be behind on work. We've almost completed our paper pattern for our waistcoats and we are currently designing our skirts.

The main aspect of our waistcoats are decorative techniques used and for our skirts we are looking at the structure and how it is constructed. Our paper patterns made us think quite a bit, because of this we can foresee what a nuisance our paper patterns for our skirt is going to be.

So here are my designs, I'll update this post with Rianna's design work later~

Melissa's Initial Design Ideas

Melissa's Design Development

Melissa's Final Design